International Men's Day: Boxer Vijender Singh and Twitterati Celebrate the Contribution of Men In Society

Today on November 19, 2017, the world is celebrating International Men’s Day, a global event that promotes awareness of male health, discrimination and gender relations. The day was inaugurated in 1992 on February 7 by Thomas Oaster. The day was reinitialized in 1999 in Trinidad and Tobago and the date were changed to November 19 by Dr. Jerome Teelucksingh who revived the event and chose the date to honour his father’s birthday and how on that day in 1989 Trinidad and Tobago united the country in its endeavours to qualify for the soccer world cup. International Men’s Day encourages men to be positive role models and their achievements and contribution towards community, family, marriage and child care and highlights the discrimination that is meted towards them. On International Men’s Day boxer Vijender Singh and Twitterati took time out to acknowledge the importance men have in society and in a family.Men play a very significant and as integral a part of the community and family as women and to celebrate their contribution this day is dedicated to them. Often we see in popular culture and stereotypical society that men are not given the emotional support that they require. Boys are told from childhood that “Boys don’t cry” which is a very detrimental and harmful way of bringing up anybody because tears are a way of expressing emotion and feelings, and when we ask boys to be tough and not give way to their feelings and emotions we are actually stunting their emotional growth making them insensitive, cruel and brutal. Men often undergo stress and depression but since they are supposed to be tough and these problems are taken as sissy their well-being is often neglected and left untreated which eventually take a toll on their family and society.

On International Men’s Day many people as well as celebrities took to Twitter to wish and highlight the contribution men makes in society and in their family. Check out some tweets below.

Boxer Vijender Singh had a very pertinent message

If you were living under the illusion that there is no International Men’s Day

No man is an island

Stop the discrimination and stereotyping

“boys don’t cry”, “man up” and “stop acting like a girl” are the words that cause men to suffer in silence #InternationalMensDay
— Freddie (@freddie_zach) November 19, 2017

Men also have issues

Celebrate the men in your life

The world is finally waking up to understand that men also have issues and are discriminated against. It is high time that we understand that “boys don’t cry”, “men will be men” and “stop acting like a girl” are words that harm men as well as women. A boy has the same right to feel pain, anguish, bereavement and heartbreak the way a woman has and moreover we should not ridicule or demean either of the ***es because they are the two equal pillars on which the civilization of the society and family life is dependent upon. Happy International Men’s Day to all the boys and men out there, go have fun, you are celebrated, acknowledged and revered as well.